Thomas Finger Awarded

The Global Development Studies Program, of the College of Arts and Sciences, University of Virginia, is pleased to announce that Thomas D. Finger has been chosen as the Jefferson Trust Global Development Studies Predoctoral Fellow for the period 2010-2012. 

Tom is a PHD student in the Corcoran Department of History who works at the intersection of history and environmental studies.  He earned his BA from SUNY Binghamton (2003) and his MA from the University of Arizona (2006), where he studied the history of water use in the western U.S.  While at Arizona, he worked with the Institute for the Study of Planet Earth to devise drought mitigation plans for two watersheds in Arizona.  At Virginia, he is studying the ways in which technologies, ecosystems, and human social groups interact over large-scale economic systems. As a case study of these relationships, his dissertation highlights the growth of the North Atlantic grain trade between the United States and Great Britain during the nineteenth century. 

The past two years at Virginia, Tom has been involved in an interdisciplinary course in the School or Engineering and Applied Science called “Technology and Democracy.”   Looking at technologies as systems of human activity rather than simple devices, the class asks engineering students to think about how their careers will influence the ways in which ideas are expressed in the public and political arenas. 

Tom will bring his historical perspective and his expertise in technology, ecology, economy and society to the Global Development Studies program.  In the Fall 2010 term, he will offer his first course in the program, GDS 3559, “Technology, Globalization, and Development:  Historical Perspectives.”